Do Day Nurses Really Feel that Night Nurses Do Nothing All Night?

Nurses General Nursing

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  1. Do day shift nurses feel that night shift nurses have nothing to do?

    • 30
      Night nurses do nothing all night but twiddle their thumbs and drink coffee.
    • 249
      Night nurses work once in a while.
    • 740
      Night nurses work very hard.

649 members have participated

Having worked the 12 hour night shift in many hospitals I find the same things. Day shift nurses leave us so much work to do that we're playing catch up all night. We start off 2 hours behind because we're finishing things left over from the day shift. I've had times when I'm still giving 9pm meds at almost midnite because things were so screwed up starting out. Then we have to do our night shift paperwork and deal with the patients who do NOT "sleep all night". Part of the night shift paperwork involves getting things proper and ready for the day shift to use. And I swear if something gets missed by us we WILL hear about it. It really burns my butt when they come in in the morning complaining about what the night shift didn't do because we ask their secretary to make a call or two for a consult. BUT it's ok for the day shift to pass things to us because it's a "24 hour care hospital". I'm just curious. How many day nurses out there believe that the night nurses should be able to do it all because we have nothing to do anyway?

I'll start by saying I work nights, 12 hour shifts.

Both shifts are busy. Last night I did not finish passing 8pm meds until 2330. And I often here the same story from day shift.

We get alot of direct admits after 7pm as well as post op pts and families calling to check on how mom is doing after they left this afternoon. There are probably more quieter nights than there are quiet days....which is why I choose to be on nights. But by no means do we ever get bored because all the patients sleep at night.

And I will gladly do what ever I can to cover your ass because I know that there are times when I will need you to cover mine :roll

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Specializes in ER, PACU, OR.

well without reading everything that has been posted here, i can say a few things.

i think primarily where i work, the dinosaurs on day shift have this attitude for a reason. despite the jurassic attitude/memory of:

"not being able to handle a few patients at night? then unable find time to stock, and clean up after the rest of the dayshifts/evening shifts dinosaur dung is lying around all day?"

i think they just don't realize, that from their jurassic nights, things have changed much since.

it is much busier now than then, and almost always full at night.

forget the nights of being full until midnight, down to half capacity at 0130, and only two patients after 0200.......those nights are over.

our dayshift needs their 15 minute break twice a day, and half hour lunch everyday. something many of us never get. :eek: yet, there is always time to complain? go figure :confused:

don't complain, get off your butt and do something about it! as albert einstein said:

"two things are infinate.............

the universe...........

and human stupidity........

i'm not so sure about the universe"

me :)

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I think management sets up the thinking that nites works less. Afterall, isn't that why we are always staffed with less nurses? I think night nurses HAVE to work better as a team than day nurses too because we only have each other. No drs., no techs, NO SUPPORT. We help each othe or we sink!!

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Specializes in Geriatrics, LTC.
Originally posted by moonrose2u

nah, they are busy...but its a different kind of busy..u know, all those "paperwork" responsibilities they are given..

and lets not forget our patients...they all come alive at night..:)

Yes day shift is very busy due to alot of people giving orders and getting in the way. Where night shift doesn't. Night shift also doesn't have the advantage of alot of extra help in an emergency, where night shift staffing is limited. Really you cannot compare the 2 shifts they are totally different shifts/jobs.

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MANY OF THE PROBLEMS I HAVE SEEN DESCRIBED ARE CAUSED BY HOSP UNDERSTAFFING. I AM A WEO RN AND THEY WERE UNDERSTAFFING WEEKENDS TERRIBLY BUT BECAUSE I WAS ABLE TO HAVE A LIST OF ACUITIES AND NUMBER OF PATIENTS FOR A FEW MONTS OF WEEKENDS WE ARE NOW STAFFED ON NIGHTS THE SAME AS ON DAYS WITH ONE EXCEPTION. INSTEAD OF A UNIT RN FLOATING TO DO ADMITS WE HAVE A HSOP FLOAT TO DO ADMITS. WE STILL GET THEM DONE AS SHE HAS 12 HRS TO DO THEM AND WE HAVE FEWER ADMITS AT NIGHT. AS FFOR DAYS DUMPING ON US, ANYONE WHO CONSISTENTLY COMPLAINS ABOUT ANOTHER SHIFT IS MADE TO WORK A WEEK ON THAT SHIFT. THAT CAN BE A REAL EYEOPENER FOR ALL CONCERNED AND IT REALLY HAS HELPED. MUCH MORE TEAMWORK NOW.ALSO, DAYS DOES ODD BATHS AND IV TUBING CHANGES AND NIGHTS FDOES EVENS. NO EXCUSES AS TO WHY IT WAS LEFT FOR THE NEXT SHIFT. THIS HAS REALLY HELPED. MAYBE SOME OF THIS COULD HELP WHERE YOU WORK.

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Originally posted by Sandra Bennett

MANY OF THE PROBLEMS I HAVE SEEN DESCRIBED ARE CAUSED BY HOSP UNDERSTAFFING. I AM A WEO RN AND THEY WERE UNDERSTAFFING WEEKENDS TERRIBLY BUT BECAUSE I WAS ABLE TO HAVE A LIST OF ACUITIES AND NUMBER OF PATIENTS FOR A FEW MONTS OF WEEKENDS WE ARE NOW STAFFED ON NIGHTS THE SAME AS ON DAYS WITH ONE EXCEPTION. INSTEAD OF A UNIT RN FLOATING TO DO ADMITS WE HAVE A HSOP FLOAT TO DO ADMITS. WE STILL GET THEM DONE AS SHE HAS 12 HRS TO DO THEM AND WE HAVE FEWER ADMITS AT NIGHT. AS FFOR DAYS DUMPING ON US, ANYONE WHO CONSISTENTLY COMPLAINS ABOUT ANOTHER SHIFT IS MADE TO WORK A WEEK ON THAT SHIFT. THAT CAN BE A REAL EYEOPENER FOR ALL CONCERNED AND IT REALLY HAS HELPED. MUCH MORE TEAMWORK NOW.ALSO, DAYS DOES ODD BATHS AND IV TUBING CHANGES AND NIGHTS FDOES EVENS. NO EXCUSES AS TO WHY IT WAS LEFT FOR THE NEXT SHIFT. THIS HAS REALLY HELPED. MAYBE SOME OF THIS COULD HELP WHERE YOU WORK.

It sounds like your hospital has really got it together.

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Of course the day shift thinks the night shift does nothing. And nights thinks the day shift is making it all up. So be it. They're different kinds of busy, different kinds of Pt issues and problems. Some of our night CVICU nurses decided to try days and quickly went back to nights. The day nurse who tried nights wondered why she hadn't done it before as it solved most of her child care issues.

The shifts are different. And a busy night is different from a busy day. You just can't compare apples and green beans.

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The thing is, day shift has done their share of nights by filling in when night nurses go on vacation and they know how hard it is on nights with less staffing and yet they still manage to dump many things on nights. Now the evening shift is a whole different ballgame. Their game where I work, is to stretch a problem as far as they can so they can push it off onto the night shift, or they'll say, "Leave it for the day shift." Obviously they just don't want to be bothered. Take last night for instance...A resident had an order for an IV, D5W.45NS. Resident pulled it out. (very confused) There were no orders to d/c it. No attempt was made to restart it. The only comment was, "Leave it for the day shift because he's going to pull it out any way." We couldn't do that, so now we have to waste an hour trying to restart this IV. Three attempts were made, kept infiltrating. The fourth attempt was successful. Resident slept all night, but did manage to pull it out around around 9am. I know b/c I worked OT 'til noon. HN was making out an incident report. Stupid things like that just pizz me off. Another story...resident c/o at 8pm his catheter being blocked b/c he now has to void and can't. Evenings stretches the problem by avoiding the resident... Is that neglect??? Now it's 12mn and his call bell is going off and he's pizzed off b/c now he really, really has to go. So right off the bat we have to take care of evenings problems. This happened to the same resident x2 and with the same nurse. The IV incident was with the same nurse also. Our nights wouldn't be as busy if OTHER shifts didn't leave their problems for us to correct. We are already busy as it is, but please, don't make it worse for us. Then they have the nerve to say, "It's so hard on nights!" and yet they continue to dump. It's been so busy the last month in the one hall that I work in that I couldn't get a chance to do my monthly summaries. Last week I accidentally went home with the key to the door where our EKG machine is kept. Had to take it back and while I was there, I did the monthly summaries b/c I would have never had the chance to do them otherwise... That's just how busy we've been. Was I rambling/venting??? I'm sorry.

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Teamwork means that eveyone does their job and DOESN'T leave it for the next person. Even if it means staying past shift change. I have worked many 12-hour night shifts without a break - not even time to go pee. 10 acutely ill (some of them too ill to go to the OR - the dumb orthopods accept them anyway - grrr) patients, with at least 4 or 5, sometimes more, fresh postops - this means q 1 hr respiration and sedation scales on patients who have had spinal-epimorphs, q4h vitals on fresh postops - complete with IVs, drains, foleys, PCAs to clear at 2400 and 0600, , a wack of postop orders and bloodwork to check, and lets not forget about those fresh postop patients themselves, who do not sleep and require q 2 to 3 h turns, who de-Sat and whose Bps crash into their boots. On an ortho surgical ward, patients do not take themselves to the bathroom. This only adds to the workload. And there's nothing like having a fresh postop go sour on you at 0300 when you and two other RNs are alone with 30 acute surgical patients! Oh and lets not forget that strange effect anesthesia seems to have on the elderly (who are the most frequent fliers on ortho) and alcoholics. On top of everything else these people are ripping out their drains (i.e. hemovac), IVs, and foleys! Keep in mind all of this is happenng when I'm alone and the other two RNs are pretty much in the same boat, so can't help.

Nothing that dayshift brings can come even close to such an experience. On days their are always bodies around to help out if you're short. No such luxury on nights. Don't forget that nights are also responsible for making sure everything is in order. Apparently that includes processing orders that were written on days and left for nights to do. Apparently it also means tidying up after days. If you d/c an IV and/or PCA on days, for heaven's sake take it down and clean up you own mess - WHY DOES ALL THIS GET LEFT FOR NIGHTS!!?? What burns my butt the most though, is when a patient is admitted through ER early in the day and is going to have surgery the next day, and the day staff don't have the decency to start the preop stuff. Oh, yeah, lets leave it for nights! Grrrr.

On my unit we all work days and night, 2 days, 2 nights, 5 off. But people still get lazy. . .

BTW - the person who said nights typically don't spend time talking to patient's families - what planet are you on! The shift starts at 1930 - that's prime visiting time! Oh, yes, families call at all hours of the night.

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:: politely flicking that ittybittyteensyweensy chip off someones shoulder...giving her a hug and a virtual gift certificate to the Cyber Coffeehouse::

feel better hon? i sure do!!

a POX on your coworkers for being so stingy.

:: laughing WITH you, not at you ::

Peace:)

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Specializes in Everything except surgery.
Originally posted by RoxiRN

Teamwork means that eveyone does their job and DOESN'T leave it for the next person. Even if it means staying past shift change. I have worked many 12-hour night shifts without a break - not even time to go pee. 10 acutely ill (some of them too ill to go to the OR - the dumb orthopods accept them anyway - grrr) patients, with at least 4 or 5, sometimes more, fresh postops - this means q 1 hr respiration and sedation scales on patients who have had spinal-epimorphs, q4h vitals on fresh postops - complete with IVs, drains, foleys, PCAs to clear at 2400 and 0600, , a wack of postop orders and bloodwork to check, and lets not forget about those fresh postop patients themselves, who do not sleep and require q 2 to 3 h turns, who de-Sat and whose Bps crash into their boots. On an ortho surgical ward, patients do not take themselves to the bathroom. This only adds to the workload. And there's nothing like having a fresh postop go sour on you at 0300 when you and two other RNs are alone with 30 acute surgical patients! Oh and lets not forget that strange effect anesthesia seems to have on the elderly (who are the most frequent fliers on ortho) and alcoholics. On top of everything else these people are ripping out their drains (i.e. hemovac), IVs, and foleys! Keep in mind all of this is happenng when I'm alone and the other two RNs are pretty much in the same boat, so can't help.

Nothing that dayshift brings can come even close to such an experience. On days their are always bodies around to help out if you're short. No such luxury on nights. Don't forget that nights are also responsible for making sure everything is in order. Apparently that includes processing orders that were written on days and left for nights to do. Apparently it also means tidying up after days. If you d/c an IV and/or PCA on days, for heaven's sake take it down and clean up you own mess - WHY DOES ALL THIS GET LEFT FOR NIGHTS!!?? What burns my butt the most though, is when a patient is admitted through ER early in the day and is going to have surgery the next day, and the day staff don't have the decency to start the preop stuff. Oh, yeah, lets leave it for nights! Grrrr.

On my unit we all work days and night, 2 days, 2 nights, 5 off. But people still get lazy. . .

BTW - the person who said nights typically don't spend time talking to patient's families - what planet are you on! The shift starts at 1930 - that's prime visiting time! Oh, yes, families call at all hours of the night.

Geezee RoxiRN....how do you handle 10 pts like that???? Lord I have a hard time dealing with the 8 I have been getting...and just one like those you described sends me nite to HELL!! My Lord....I'm in awe of you and your fellow nurses...:cool:

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Gee, I thought my facility was the only one...

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